


Abrazo

by MurderRose



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Buenos Aires, Established Relationship, M/M, Milonga, Minghao's Fond™ Face, Tango
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 03:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30015465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderRose/pseuds/MurderRose
Summary: The embrace was what made tango work.Perhaps it was what made them work too.
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Abrazo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [insonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/insonder/gifts).



> I got INSPIRED hard by [this gif](https://twitter.com/junspectacles/status/1370272136980537345) and [this radio segment](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p099j881) and [this MV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K5XEL93EZc) and [this preformance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJNs87JdAqs) and [this album (recommended listening)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_pLL278zoM).
> 
> Many thanks to Cryptid and Blue!
> 
> Please enjoy.

It was a running joke at this stage. The fact that if they were standing together, Mingyu's hand would inevitably find its way to Minghao's side — waist, shoulder, wrist, hip, he wasn't fussy — and tug him closer.

It was like they were magnetised, programmed to be drawn impossibly closer to each other, until there wasn't space for paper between them. 

Minghao wasn't a fatalist, but he thought that if there were three ladies who sat together to gossip about mortal lives, that maybe they knew how much he loved when Mingyu did it. How cherished he felt when Mingyu pulled him closer. How he put up a token protest — mostly for their friends — but that secretly, once Mingyu's fingers latched onto his waist, his brain was mostly a repeat of 'where you go I follow, where you put me, I'll stay'.

Perhaps that was why they had been drawn to Ballroom, to Latin, and eventually to the Argentine tango.

And they hadn't looked back.

Mingyu's hands were sure on Minghao's waist. Steady. 

"One and two and—"

Minghao stepped back, lips already turning up as Mingyu hurried him back and tugged him forward by the hip, spinning them on their toes to face the opposite corner before urging him back again for a half beat and stopping, hovering in the pauses between beats to catch his gaze.

The melody tricked through the air, but neither of them were listening for that, and the second the guitar came back in with its half bass line, they started to move again, tiny steps around each other's feet, going nowhere, eyes locked together, Minghao's lips spreading more fully into a smile as neither of them put a step wrong.

They'd been learning this routine for two weeks, and it was fast. Faster than they usually danced, but they were going on holiday to Buenos Aires and they wanted their tango game to be on point if they were to blend in with the locals and not so locals in the milongas.

Mingyu spun Minghao out, and circled around him in something that Minghao still thought was too paso doble for tango, but Mingyu liked it, and Minghao got to do the tiny flicky solo steps that he liked so much while Mingyu looked at him, so it really wasn't a hardship.

Mingyu was laughing when they came back in close, and Minghao smiled as he pressed his hand to the side of his neck, leaning forward and sliding his knee up to Mingyu's hip, giving him all his weight as Mingyu picked him up by the calf and the waist and spun them around the room. Minghao loved this move. It was also new, something they'd seen at a display and immediately stared at each other in excitement. Lifts were so fun. 

"Hao-love? Have you packed my tails?"

"You're not bringing your tails!"

"I am, I packed yours. What if we go out for dinner?" Mingyu rounded the arch into the kitchen to raise an eyebrow at him, "What if we go to a silver service restaurant?"

"Have you booked one?"

"Well, no—"

Minghao turned off the stove and moved the pot to a pot stand and flicked his eyes up to meet Mingyu's. "Well then, we won't need our tails, will we?"

"Where are mine?" Mingyu sighed and Minghao looked away. "Hao? My tails. Where are they?"

"Bathroom closet."

"The only place I didn't check–" Mingyu pursed his lips and crossed the kitchen to press a quick kiss to Minghao's cheek– "I love your mind sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"All the time, babe!"

Minghao thought he was so slick. He thought that Mingyu couldn't tell that he practically melted whenever he so much as touched his fingers to his side, like Mingyu was thick, like he hadn't figured it out the third time he'd done it.

"Hao," Mingyu murmured, walking his fingers around from Minghao's bag strap to his waist and smoothing out the bunched up fabric. "Relax."

Minghao leaned into his side, breath hissing out between his teeth. "We're going to miss our flight."

"We're not. We're going to walk straight through security, just relax."

"What if they stop us?"

"Why?"

"Cause we're together."

"We're best friends."

"Mingyu."

"What? We are–" Mingyu smiled mildly– "Stop worrying."

Minghao slept the entire flight, curled half into Mingyu's side — they'd lifted the arm rest the first second that they could — and Mingyu just loved him so much. He thought about the coat and tails he'd packed, of the tiny box he'd nestled between the folds of the cummerbunds, and looked down to where fingers interwoven with Minghao's own. Of course he'd made a reservation. 

Minghao looked fantastic. His shoes practically reflected his face back at him, and the lines of his suit were so dreamy that Mingyu wanted to take photos of him all night, especially under the spot of light streaming from the street lamp above them, but Minghao had said ten photos only, and that they'd be late.

That wouldn't do.

He locked his phone with a sigh and reached out for Minghao's hand, smoothing his thumb over Minghao's knuckles.

The milonga was busy. They'd waited until one am to leave the airbnb, heeding all of their teachers' advice, and the dance floor was teeming with couples.

"Do you want a drink?" Mingyu leaned down to half shout into Minghao's ear. Minghao held his hand tighter and shook his head.

"Dance first?"

"Do you not want to watch for a little bit?"

Minghao took a half step back into Mingyu, "Let's dance first."

All of their fancy footwork went out the window when their feet hit the floor, reverting back to the most basic steps and trying to follow the flow of the floor. They ran into a traffic jam within five minutes, as a tall couple stopped in a corner on one of the prettiest hesitations to spin around each other with tiny steps, and the entire milonga — or what sounded like the entire milonga — started to clap on the beat and the couple's grins grew until by the time they finished the sequence, with the taller woman practically upside down along her partner's leg, they were laughing loudly.

Minghao tugged Mingyu off to the bar and ordered them both a glass of malbec.

"Alright?"

Minghao nodded and looped his fingers through Mingyu's belt loops, stretching up to kiss him, bolstered perhaps by the two women on the dance floor, and only pulling away at the bartender's pointed cough.

"Gracias."

Mingyu still tasted like wine the next night. And a bit like the garlic from their dinner, and Minghao pulled back from kissing him to watch the dance floor. They’d found an out of the way corner to survey the scene while they finished their wine. Watch first and join in later. Learn from your naive mistakes. The venue wasn't as packed — all the tables were full, but they'd expected them to be. They'd arrived too late for a table, but just in time for a lively dance floor.

Minghao linked his fingers through Mingyu's on his stomach and leaned further back against him. Mingyu stepped back a half step before stabilising, pulling Minghao upright against him.

"Careful."

Minghao grinned and swallowed the last mouthful of his wine. Mingyu still had most of a glass left, but that was okay. He didn't know this song. 

Wednesday's milonga was better. 

They knew all the songs.

Their glasses clinked onto the bar as they passed it, and Mingyu tugged Minghao after him to a clear spot on the floor. Minghao grinned, pressing flush against him to kiss the corner of his mouth before settling into a better dance position, unable to wipe the grin off his face.

Mingyu settled his hand onto his waist, strictly not great dance practice but it was how they danced, and touched their knees together slightly before leading him in a backwards ochos, and then another, before Minghao caught his knee up around Mingyu's hip and sunk his weight forward against him, grinning against his cheek as Mingyu stepped back to let the movement settle into the music for one beat, two, before stepping back close and leading Minghao back into a series of hooks and flicks.

They bumped into another couple just as they reached a corner, and Minghao practically jumped forwards, apologies falling from his lips as they waved them off.

It was less a dance floor and more a dance mosh pit, and Minghao wrapped his forearm around Mingyu's shoulders, drawing lazy circles around their feet with the tip of his shoe, waiting for the floor to loosen up a little.

The song changed to something remixed, something off the pop charts remixed with a tango standard, and Mingyu practically started to vibrate under Minghao's hands.

He loved the remixes. Thursday's milonga had a DJ, and they had yet to miss a beat — to excuse the pun.

They knew the pop song better than the standard, so they danced to the bass of the pop song, stepping a little closer to the centre of the floor so that they could go faster, stepping in to each other and turning on every beat drop, so that by the time they reached the other side of the floor, Minghao was a little dizzy, and more than clinging to Mingyu's shoulders as the floor started to spin.

Mingyu slid his hand down Minghao's back, switching to the standard beat to slow down, smoothing his palm around Minghao's thigh and pulling his leg up slowly to hook around his waist.

Minghao grinned.

Mingyu lifted him up, and spun him around carefully, mindful of the busy floor, managing to time it so that when he set him back down, when Minghao tugged him close to kiss him briefly, the music finished.

Ah, timing.

What a fickle mistress.

Several glasses of wine later, Minghao tugged Mingyu out of the milonga.

"My feet!!"

"We're here for a week, you can't bow out now!"

"My love, if we don't go home now, I won't make it out of bed tomorrow."

Friday evening started with Minghao begrudgingly changing into tails.

"I'm putting on eyeliner."

"Yes?"

"With the tails?"

"Oh yeah, go for it." Mingyu shook his head, and laced up his shoes, palming their keys into a pocket and checking the time on his phone, Minghao's photo from the first night, floodlit by a lamp and dressed to impress, looking up at him.

"My love? Ready?" Minghao peered at him from under a scarf, his coat open and Mingyu blinked rapidly.

"Yep! Let's go!"

"You didn't."

Mingyu grinned into Minghao's hair as they stood outside El Baqueano, "I did."

"How did you?"

"I have my secrets."

"You have no secrets."

Mingyu pressed a kiss to Minghao's hair, ignoring the tacky taste of his hair gel and swayed them a little. "I have some secrets."

"There is no way I can dance after all that food–" Minghao grinned up at him as they queued to get into a milonga a few streets away from their airbnb– "I'm going to be a stone on the floor."

Mingyu had planned for this. "What about the river? There are loads of clubs along the riverside, we don't have to go in."

Maybe they looked silly, in their tails and coats and Minghao's massive scarf, slowly tracing their way through a sleepy tango down the cobblestones of the riverbank, listening with half an ear to the music bleeding out from the milongas. But they didn't care. 

Minghao slipped his hands into Mingyu's pockets, pressing a dozen sleepy kisses against his collarbone and murmuring something about needing to be horizontal, and Mingyu ducked his head to kiss him slowly.

"Ten more minutes? I want to show you something."

"Alright."

He'd looked up view spots, but he hadn't really imagined how amazing the city would look reflected in the still waters of the river, the lights glinting back up at them, and he put his plans on hold for a few seconds to take some photos, kneeling to get the angle, and then ushering Minghao in front of the camera for a dozen more.

He captured one final photo, and flicked back to review it, only to jerk his head up to Minghao. He'd been holding something in the photo and he couldn't have — "No."

"Yes."

"No, this was my plan." Mingyu knew he sounded petulant and disbelieving, but really?

Minghao laughed, his light airy giggles filling the air around them as he held out a tiny box on his palm, "You have no secrets, my love."

Mingyu dug in his pocket for his own box, pulling it out and opening it carefully. "Do they match?"

"Depends what you mean by match. Mingoo, marry me?"

"Only if you'll marry me?"

Minghao laughed and hurtled forward the few steps to kiss him, box clicking shut as his arms wrapped tight around Mingyu's neck, "Of course I will."

They fumbled rings onto each other’s hands and admired how they glinted in the reflected moonlight. Minghao pulled Mingyu’s hand to his lips, pressing a kiss into the skin just below the ring with a soft smile.

They did match.

After all, they knew each other too well.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Twitter [@RoseEnDiamant](https://twitter.com/RoseEnDiamant) and CuriousCat [@MurderRose](https://curiouscat.qa/MurderRose).


End file.
